Permits Improvement Team

Over the past 25 years, EPA has continually
searched to find the best ways to protect the environment. Among the most
successful methods have been EPA's programs requiring industrial and municipal
facilities to obtain permits to control their pollutant emissions(1) to
the air, land and water. Programs such as New Source Review for air emissions,
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) for water discharges
and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) for hazardous waste
management have in many ways reduced the negative impacts of industrial
and municipal facilities on human health and the environment.

The Permits Improvement Team (PIT) was created in July 1994 to examine
all of EPA's permitting programs (air, water, and hazardous waste) and
identify how they can be improved. The Team consists of EPA, state, tribal
and local government officials.

It was recognized early on that a number of permit improvement initiatives
were already completed or underway at EPA headquarters, the EPA regional
offices and state, tribal and local governments. Rather than "reinvent
the wheel", the PIT began to inventory these initiatives.
The Permit Improvement Team Inventory was used to help the PIT identify
specific recommendations on how to improve EPA's permitting programs

But numerous environmental challenges remain. Perhaps the greatest challenge
for EPA today is to answer the public demand for more environmental protection
at less cost. This demand of "more for less" requires EPA to examine both
the philosophy and practice of its permitting systems, to determine how
they can be made to function more effectively while at the same time decreasing
costs for environmental agencies and the regulated community.

The Permit Improvement Team seeks to resolve these concerns by establishing
a revised approach to environmental permitting: public performance-based
permitting. This approach incorporates two concepts; one, the establishment
of a defined level of performance to be achieved by the permittee and
two, providing the public with the necessary information so they can monitor
the permitting process and compliance of permitted facilities. Details
of this approach are found in the
Concept Paper on Environmental Permitting and Task Force Recommendations.